Review: Belkin’s $299 Thunderbolt Express Dock works well, costs lots

It's fast, expensive, and people are going to be angry it exists. Just like Thunderbolt!

I admit it—I'm a dirty, dirty Mac user. The mid-2011 13" MacBook Air I picked up about two years ago has been the best laptop I've ever owned, and I haul it with me everywhere. It has enough battery power to get me through the day along with enough RAM for work, and its SSD and CPU are still nice and quick.

What it doesn't have is a fast way to get data into and out of it. Its built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi feels pokey no matter where I am, and the physical USB-driven Ethernet adapter only goes up to 100Mbps, thanks to the MacBook's lack of USB 3.0. The MacBook Air is a great machine for working, but it's a pain on the occasions I actually have to copy data in bulk onto or off of it.

And yet, it has that Thunderbolt port. About twenty minutes after I bought the MacBook Air, I tried to copy a multi-GB virtual machine onto the thing. Wouldn't it be awesome, I've been thinking ever since then, if I could actually use this expensive-ass Thunderbolt port for something useful?

When you need it, you need it

Thunderbolt-powered 1Gbps Ethernet adapters arrived last year, finally, but those devices lack flexibility—they take the entire Thunderbolt port when connected and, at least on MacBook Airs that only have the one port, they leave you Thunderbolt-less. The thing I've been looking for, really, was a Thunderbolt port replicator/dock thingy—something like the Thunderbolt Express Dock that Belkin finally released this year.

Enlarge/ The Thunderbolt Express Dock from the front. Not much going on. Note small cut-out for cable routing.

Lee Hutchinson

The Express Dock is a slim, aluminum-shelled device that's obviously designed to match the exterior of Apple's MacBooks—which is a good thing, because Thunderbolt just isn't finding a lot of OEM acceptance outside of Apple. If Bondi-blue plastic was the theme for USB accessories back in the late 1990s, then aluminum is the color and texture of all things Thunderbolt, because the majority of the hardware is going to be from (or want to look like it's from) Apple.

The Express dock is a low-slung little device designed to sit on your desk, near or behind your Thunderbolt-equipped computer. It's got an understated Belkin logo on the top, and there's a slot on the bottom for cable control. The rear of the device contains the features we care about most—all those lovely ports that we need.

Enlarge/ Ports on the back of the Thunderbolt Express Dock. Those USB 3.0 ports are limited to 2.5Gbps.

Lee Hutchinson

From left to right, the Express Dock has a wired 1Gbps Ethernet port, a Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b) port, two Thunderbolt ports, two 3.5mm audio jacks (out for headphones, in for a microphone), three USB 3.0 sort-of-SuperSpeed ports, and the plug for the power adapter.

Oh, that power adapter. If ever a device should have an internal power supply, it is this dock, but Belkin has decided to saddle it with an awful, ungainly brick—an awful, ungainly brick that you'll have to haul around with you if you want to move the dock from place to place. Here's the Thunderbolt Express dock sitting atop my MacBook Air:

Of course, an annoyingly large power brick is not a big deal if you intend for the dock to remain in place on your desk and not accompany you when you go mobile. It's another thing if you expect to regularly haul it around—like if, for example, you have some USB 3.0 accessories you want to use with your no-USB-3.0-having 2011 MacBook Air.

It's also important to note that the dock does not come with a Thunderbolt cable. You'll need to supply your own (starting at about $29 for a half-meter) to actually connect it to your computer.

Performance in daily use

The dock has been extensively benchmarked at lots of other sites, and I arrived at similar numbers as just about everyone else who's had their hands on the device, which means we can dispense with the charts and graphs. The dock was able, without any issues, to saturate its 1Gbps Ethernet port when copying files around on my LAN. Adding more file copies to and from attached USB 3.0 devices (one G-Skill USB 3.0 G-Drive Slim and one SanDisk Extreme USB stick) while also listening to headphones plugged into the audio port didn't perturb anything.

The dock also worked with both of my desktop Thunderbolt displays without issue. I was able to connect the dock to one of my desktop iMac's Thunderbolt ports, then connect one Thunderbolt monitor to the dock, and then connect the third Thunderbolt monitor to the second. This odd daisy chain was a lot less convenient than simply connecting the two monitors to the iMac and the dock to one of the monitors, though.

With the time and equipment I had on hand to test with, I wasn't able to concoct a scenario to totally saturate the dock's 10Gbps Thunderbolt downlink channel. Daisy-chaining it between and behind one of my Apple Thunderbolt displays didn't make a difference one way or another to the ongoing file copies.

From a bandwidth and performance perspective, the dock is mostly a success—mostly. The potential problem that keeps the dock from being a total success is that the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports are limited to half of their theoretical 5Gbps speed. In practice, this likely won't make a huge amount of difference unless you're planning on hanging multiple SSDs off of the dock, but it's definitely worth noting, and it could impact your potential use of the dock.

There are also a lot of unhappy folks reporting that Apple's external USB SuperDrives don't work with the Thunderbolt Express Dock. This is likely just a Superdrive-specific issue, as I had no problems attaching and using an external LG multi-drive. Lack of Apple SuperDrive functionality is an annoyance more than a show-stopper, but it's been enough to cause the dock to score some negative reviews on its Apple Store page.

Windows

The Thunderbolt Express Dock "worked" in Windows 7 without requiring any additional drivers. I use "worked" in quotes because, although the device was detected, Windows 7 wasn't able to correctly detect and configure perhaps the most important feature: the USB 3.0 ports.

The dock is functional in Windows 7, but the USB 3.0 ports don't work in Windows without third-party drivers. Cue sad trombone.

Lee Hutchinson

Fortunately, PCIDatabase.com came to the rescue in figuring out what kind of driver was needed. The non-functioning USB controller showed up in device manager with a vendor ID of 1B73—Fresco Logic—and a device ID of 1100. A bit of searching led to this site, which in spite of looking a little sketchy, and also being written in French, contained drivers that worked beautifully. After installing the drivers, I had no splats in Device Manager, and all of the ports on the Express Dock were functional.

Enlarge/ After installing the Fresco Logic drivers, USB is a go. Here's a shot of device manager showing the Fresco Logic USB controller.

Lee Hutchinson

Other than the initial driver issue, the dock's behavior in Windows 7 was unremarkable. I was able to use the dock's Thunderbolt port to attach one of my Apple Thunderbolt Displays, and multi-monitor functionality worked as advertised. I was unable to get both Thunderbolt displays to work in Windows, but this is an issue with the Mac itself, not the dock. It functioned quickly and without complaint. I was using my desktop iMac in Boot Camp to do the testing, and I thus didn't have Windows 8 to experiment with, but the Fresco Logic controller drivers linked above purport to work in Windows 8 as well.

Conclusion

Whether or not the Thunderbolt Express Dock looks like an attractive purchase to you is likely predicated on whether or not you have a computer that is both equipped with Thunderbolt and also lacking in other ports. If you have a port-starved, Thunderbolt-equipped Ultrabook and you need gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 connectivity, this is a great accessory; if you're just looking for some more USB 3.0 ports and you don't care about Thunderbolt, then it's obviously nowhere near as great.

The annoying power brick kills most of the device's portable appeal, too, taking up bag space and adding weight. Of course, even if the dock had an internal power supply, it still doesn't work un-powered, so my complaint with the brick is simply one of weight and bulk. Even brick-less, the dock is profoundly not a mobile device—you'll have to hunt for a power outlet before you can actually use it or anything connected to it, which might be pretty painful.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's a useless gadget—it's not. It's a well-made device and it's nice and fast. It does exactly what it's supposed to (minus any Apple SuperDrive-related hiccups). The thing that makes it impractical—aside from the sticker shock-inducing $299 price—is that you gotta have a Thunderbolt-equipped computer to even need the dock in the first place.

The Good

Extends the usable life of port-limited Ultrabooks like the MacBook Air by enabling them to work with all kinds of USB 3.0 accessories

Totally seamless plug-n-play functionality in OS X

Thunderbolt provides plenty of bandwidth for using all the dock's ports

The Bad

Thunderbolt's powered cables mean that the dock requires external power to operate, killing its mobility

Adding insult to injury and tying it further to the desk, it comes with a giant power brick

The Ugly

$299 and it doesn't even come with a cable? Come on.

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

I am not sure I understand complaining about the lack of portability of a dock. They are typically meant to live in one place. In fact, I've rarely seen a dock that was more portable than the laptop that docked with it.

It looks as though you missed the fact that Apple will sell you a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor, as you could have used that to hook up to a high speed LAN for much less than this dock. Of course, that would leave you without simultaneous external monitor support.

It looks as though you missed the section in the article where the author writes..

Quote:

Thunderbolt-powered 1Gbps Ethernet adapters arrived last year, finally, but those devices lack flexibility—they take the entire Thunderbolt port when connected and, at least on MacBook Airs that only have the one port, they leave you Thunderbolt-less.

That power brick is huge. I mean, seriously, it's much bigger than my Thinkpad brick. 2 TB ports + 3 USB3 ports = ~50watts (if I recall the specs correctly), so what else are they packing in that thing?

I understand having something external because it makes it easier to sell into countries (which all have different power grids), but that is silly.

I hate to be the Apple hater on this thread but somebody has to point out the silliness of this particular Ars genre of gear review: stuff I need to make my beautiful Apple gear useful.

It would make more sense to talk about "The Bad" for the mid-2011 13" MacBook Air:Requires $299 dock with giant power brick because Apple wouldn't pay ($5?) to enable USB 3.0 on either of the USB ports. And I had to wait until mid-2013 for somebody to even offer this "solution".

I don't think it is fair to dock it for not being portable. In my view, docks are not mean to be portable. What you want is a different device designed for portability. There are other thunderbolt "docks" that might be more portable.

I am not sure I understand complaining about the lack of portability of a dock. They are typically meant to live in one place. In fact, I've rarely seen a dock that was more portable than the laptop that docked with it.

Imho, their design is somewhat falling short and at that price it's hardly excusable. Adding the volume and weight of the powerbrick to the dock would have made it way more portable, just one thing to carry around and it's also self-contained on your desk.

I have a few powerbricks behind my desk, I interact with them more often then the devices they are powering: each time I vacuum ! Hello Xbox360 powerbrick! You're helping me clean my apartment by trapping dirt and cat hairs with your ribbed shell, you shouldn't have!

The dock's design also fails with the port placement, it would not have much harder to put the audio and maybe two usb ports in the front.

Forgive me, I have nothing of value to contribute to the discussion regarding the thunderbolt dock. I do, however, think that it is *fucking* rad that Lee is apparently an EFF member/supporter and rocking the sticker pack on his Mac. Well done.

That power brick is huge. I mean, seriously, it's much bigger than my Thinkpad brick. 2 TB ports + 3 USB3 ports = ~50watts (if I recall the specs correctly), so what else are they packing in that thing?

I understand having something external because it makes it easier to sell into countries (which all have different power grids), but that is silly.

Most power bricks these days are 100-240v 47-63Hz models that will work anywhere on the globe with just a different power cable. The only major exception to this are devices with AC electric motors because they use the AC waveform as part of their control system.

It would make more sense to talk about "The Bad" for the mid-2011 13" MacBook Air:Requires $299 dock with giant power brick because Apple wouldn't pay ($5?) to enable USB 3.0 on either of the USB ports. And I had to wait until mid-2013 for somebody to even offer this "solution".

I'm not so sure it was Apple being cheap. My memory may be a bit foggy, but I thought USB 3.0 capable motherboards didn't start coming out until 2010, and even then, there were only a few. Same for USB 3.0 controllers. I don't think Intel provided a chipset until 2012, trying to push their Thunderbolt as the next high speed interface, but there were a few others that had come out.

I think the lack of USB 3.0 support in the mid-2011 MBA was more due to USB 3.0 being too new to the market during the design of that year's MBA platform.

I am not sure I understand complaining about the lack of portability of a dock. They are typically meant to live in one place. In fact, I've rarely seen a dock that was more portable than the laptop that docked with it.

typically sure, but i appreciate that he mentioned it.

I like to know when something has a power brick, manufacturers will leave it out in product shot and it can be a rude surprise.

I am not sure I understand complaining about the lack of portability of a dock. They are typically meant to live in one place. In fact, I've rarely seen a dock that was more portable than the laptop that docked with it.

Imho, their design is somewhat falling short and at that price it's hardly excusable. Adding the volume and weight of the powerbrick to the dock would have made it way more portable, just one thing to carry around and it's also self-contained on your desk.

I have a few powerbricks behind my desk, I interact with them more often then the devices they are powering: each time I vacuum ! Hello Xbox360 powerbrick! You're helping me clean my apartment by trapping dirt and cat hairs with your ribbed shell, you shouldn't have!

The dock's design also fails with the port placement, it would not have much harder to put the audio and maybe two usb ports in the front.

It's not that bad, it's just that it could have been so much better

It is a dock. By definition it is not portable. I have no idea where people are getting the idea that it should be portable.

I hate to be the Apple hater on this thread but somebody has to point out the silliness of this particular Ars genre of gear review: stuff I need to make my beautiful Apple gear useful.

It would make more sense to talk about "The Bad" for the mid-2011 13" MacBook Air:Requires $299 dock with giant power brick because Apple wouldn't pay ($5?) to enable USB 3.0 on either of the USB ports. And I had to wait until mid-2013 for somebody to even offer this "solution".

Nice review of the dock though.

And I hate to be the Apple defender (feels weird), but I think the point is that these ultraportable notebooks all sacrifice flexibility and power to some extent. It's the tradeoff they make for people whose typical usage favors portability in most scenarios. It sounds like the notebook is a great fit for the author in most cases but the dock seems to be a way to add back some of the capabilities lost to thinness and lightness.

If your typical case favors portability 97% of the time and the ability to hook up high-bandwidth peripherals 3% of the time, it seems like a dock at your desk is a good workaround. Sure, the power brick is clunky but it's meant to live on your desk. That way when you get home from toting around your fancy-pants ultra-thin laptop, you can plug in a single cable and do things like transfer large files or output to dual monitors.

I am not sure I understand complaining about the lack of portability of a dock. They are typically meant to live in one place. In fact, I've rarely seen a dock that was more portable than the laptop that docked with it.

But is it really a dock? When I think of a dock for a laptop I think of a large stationary device that latches onto my laptop through some built-in connector, and remains more or less permanently attached to other large devices at my desk. A small device that attaches with a cable is really more of an adapter. We generally expect our adapters to be portable.

Is there an understanding why this is so expensive? A 4 port ethernet switch can be found for $15 and a usb hub for around $15, meaning the actual connectors are available to the manufacturer for maybe $1 each. So, there are maybe $10 of connectors on it. There is also a controller that allows things to work.

Does the controller cpu and auxiliary chip(s) cost the manufacturer more than $200? Or, do the controller cpu and auxiliary chip(s) cost more like $30 but there is such an incredibly low volume on this product that they need a huge markup to recoup engineering costs?

I hate to be the Apple hater on this thread but somebody has to point out the silliness of this particular Ars genre of gear review: stuff I need to make my beautiful Apple gear useful.

It would make more sense to talk about "The Bad" for the mid-2011 13" MacBook Air:Requires $299 dock with giant power brick because Apple wouldn't pay ($5?) to enable USB 3.0 on either of the USB ports. And I had to wait until mid-2013 for somebody to even offer this "solution".

Nice review of the dock though.

USB 3.0 wasn't natively integrated into the chipsets back then. Apple would have had to have added a buggy 3rd party controller to try and get USB 3.0 support into that MBA back then, and Apple prefers to keep the amount of buggy to a minimum. I hate to be Captain Obvious here, but Apple MBAs are not thoroughly considered to be among the best laptops on the market because you have to buy a $300 dock to use them... because you don't have to. I know Windows and Linux fanboys alike love the MacBook Air because it is the best, and they don't even use the Mac side of it.

The newest ones have USB 3.0 in all their USB ports, have Thunderbolt, and an SD card slot. What dock do you need then? I don't really know what you're talking about. That's before we mention that the newest one has 12 to 13 hours of battery life, as rated by Engadget and others.

/disclaimer: I don't own an MBA. I don't even own a laptop. I firmly believe a tablet and a desktop are the best combination of power and portability. If I did buy a laptop, it would probably be this one, but I have no plans to purchase a laptop any time soon.

Last weekend I set up a new 13" MBA for one of our users, in the process dealing with the port issues that are inherent to the MBA's design. I would have liked to buy the Belkin, but considering its price, and the additional need to buy an expensive T'bolt cable, decided not to.

Instead I picked up a TB to FW800 adapter (for ongoing maintenance needs) and a third party USB to gigabit ethernet adapter, which works nicely enough for $30. (This MBA's TB port is in use for a desktop monitor.)

I'd have bought the Belkin for $199 including a 6-ft TB cable. For $299 and not even including the cable, no.

That ugly and oversized power brick is simply insulting. The MBA's own power adapter is smaller, better designed, better looking, and is universal voltage/frequency.

That brick shows how much they value form over function. If thunderbolt is going to be widely adopted (outside of a small group of specilaized Mac users) the price of the cables and accessories needs to drop significantly and quickly.

vibedog: Thunderbolt is crazy expensive because of the ridiculously high licensing fees and the market is small enough that there is no volume to drive prices down.

Forgive me, I have nothing of value to contribute to the discussion regarding the thunderbolt dock. I do, however, think that it is *fucking* rad that Lee is apparently an EFF member/supporter and rocking the sticker pack on his Mac. Well done.

The stickers actually are from the Bitcoin-plus-cash donation to the EFF Ars made as a result of our review of the Butterfly Labs "Jalapeño" Bitcoin miner. In lieu of T-shirts or other swag, I asked the EFF to send us a bunch of sticker packs, which I have and will be distributing to the rest of Ars

The price is high when you consider there is no Thunderbolt cable. Though to be fair, docking solutions for other laptops aren't much cheaper. Lenovo's docking stations cost from $220-$270 with USB 3.0.

That said, I'm still on the fence (leaning to no) on getting one. I have a 2011 MBP and I go between two offices (home and work) with it frequently enough that a single cable (OK 2 cable) solution would be nice, but probably not THAT nice.

It looks as though you missed the fact that Apple will sell you a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor, as you could have used that to hook up to a high speed LAN for much less than this dock. Of course, that would leave you without simultaneous external monitor support.

It looks as though you missed the section in the article where the author writes..

Quote:

Thunderbolt-powered 1Gbps Ethernet adapters arrived last year, finally, but those devices lack flexibility—they take the entire Thunderbolt port when connected and, at least on MacBook Airs that only have the one port, they leave you Thunderbolt-less.

What I really want is just a Thunderbolt to USB3 adapter for the price of apples thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor.

Is there an understanding why this is so expensive? A 4 port ethernet switch can be found for $15 and a usb hub for around $15, meaning the actual connectors are available to the manufacturer for maybe $1 each. So, there are maybe $10 of connectors on it. There is also a controller that allows things to work.

Does the controller cpu and auxiliary chip(s) cost the manufacturer more than $200? Or, do the controller cpu and auxiliary chip(s) cost more like $30 but there is such an incredibly low volume on this product that they need a huge markup to recoup engineering costs?

Perhaps it is expensive because Belkin had to make it work the way Apple though it shoud perform, instead of the way Belkin wants it to perform... (yes this is an insult towards Belkin... as a result of their crappy wireless routers ... I.e. Vision one... looked great, but what a "great" sh**y piece of un-finished work!... d**m thing needed to be reset every two weeks due to time server issues Internal to the router)

It would make more sense to talk about "The Bad" for the mid-2011 13" MacBook Air:Requires $299 dock with giant power brick because Apple wouldn't pay ($5?) to enable USB 3.0 on either of the USB ports. And I had to wait until mid-2013 for somebody to even offer this "solution".

I'm not so sure it was Apple being cheap. My memory may be a bit foggy, but I thought USB 3.0 capable motherboards didn't start coming out until 2010, and even then, there were only a few. Same for USB 3.0 controllers. I don't think Intel provided a chipset until 2012, trying to push their Thunderbolt as the next high speed interface, but there were a few others that had come out.

I think the lack of USB 3.0 support in the mid-2011 MBA was more due to USB 3.0 being too new to the market during the design of that year's MBA platform.

You memory serves you well. There were several factors in the delay with native USB 3.0 controllers including Intel trying to sell people on Thunderbolt, which I still argue is a better solution going forward.

OS X lack of adoption of USB 3.0 was because Apple options were limited for a chipset, they just delayed their adoption, the lack of support for the true potential of USB 3.0 for this dock wierd though.

It looks as though you missed the fact that Apple will sell you a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor, as you could have used that to hook up to a high speed LAN for much less than this dock. Of course, that would leave you without simultaneous external monitor support.

It looks as though you missed the section in the article where the author writes..

Quote:

Thunderbolt-powered 1Gbps Ethernet adapters arrived last year, finally, but those devices lack flexibility—they take the entire Thunderbolt port when connected and, at least on MacBook Airs that only have the one port, they leave you Thunderbolt-less.

What I really want is just a Thunderbolt to USB3 adapter for the price of apples thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor.

You want to slow Thunderbolt down is what you're saying. You do realize that, right?

No he's saying he wants to be able to connect hardware that actually exists and is affordable.

I've a MBA for about a year now, and I think it's a wonderful self-contained device. But once you try to get it to work together with anything else, it's just downright horrid. And this expensive dock is just to top it off.

For what it's worth, you probably won't need that sketchy USB 3.0 driver for Windows 8 since it has generic support for those devices built in the same way USB 2.0 just works in previous versions of Windows.

Thanks so much for checking it out in Windows. I run Boot Camp on my MacBook Air, but I only use the Windows install (if I knew how, I'd reclaim the storage lost to the OS X partition, too). I use my Thunderbolt port for an Ethernet adapter, and I have a very full USB hub plugged into the adjacent USB port. This will free up my USB port, give me an Ethernet port, and "free up" my Thunderbolt port. Fantastic.

I've a MBA for about a year now, and I think it's a wonderful self-contained device. But once you try to get it to work together with anything else, it's just downright horrid. And this expensive dock is just to top it off.

I'm not so sure it was Apple being cheap. My memory may be a bit foggy, but I thought USB 3.0 capable motherboards didn't start coming out until 2010, and even then, there were only a few. Same for USB 3.0 controllers. I don't think Intel provided a chipset until 2012, trying to push their Thunderbolt as the next high speed interface, but there were a few others that had come out.

I think the lack of USB 3.0 support in the mid-2011 MBA was more due to USB 3.0 being too new to the market during the design of that year's MBA platform.

Yes, there was no 3.0 as Apple and Intel were pushing TB. Also, 3.0 wasn't native, meaning Apple would've needed to use another thirdparty controller to add support. Most non-Apple computers at the time had at least one usb 3.0 port, and they worked well.

USB 3.0 wasn't natively integrated into the chipsets back then. Apple would have had to have added a buggy 3rd party controller to try and get USB 3.0 support into that MBA back then, and Apple prefers to keep the amount of buggy to a minimum.

Idk about buggy, I haven't had any issues with usb 3.0 on any of my non-native controllers - some were probably buggy, not all.